Start with high-confidence civilizations books, then narrow by subgenre or adjacent topics.
Homo Deus
Yuval Noah Harari
Collapse
Jared Diamond, Michael Prichard
On Grand Strategy
John Lewis Gaddis
A Brief History of Vice
Robert Evans
The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan, Gail Collins
Four Lost Cities
Annalee Newitz
The World
Simon Sebag Montefiore
A History of the World in 100 Objects
Neil MacGregor
The Idea of Decline in Western History
Arthur Herman
The Renaissance
Will Durant
Civilization
Niall Ferguson
The Emperor of All Maladies
Siddhartha Mukherjee, Fred Sanders
Chinese Myths & Legends
J.K. Jackson, Hin Ming Frankie Chik
The Penguin History of the World
J. M. Roberts, Odd Arne Westad
